#messier 97

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The Owl Nebula, M97 // Thomas Rox

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The Comet, the Owl, and the Galaxy 

Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak poses for a Messier moment in this telescopic snapshot from March 21, 2017. In fact it shares the 1 degree wide field-of-view with two well-known entries in the 18th century comet-hunting astronomer's famous catalog. Sweeping through northern springtime skies just below the Big Dipper, the faint greenish comet was about 75 light-seconds from our fair planet. Dusty, edge-on spiral galaxy Messier 108 (bottom center) is more like 45 million light-years away. At upper right, the planetary nebula with an aging but intensely hot central star, the owlish Messier 97 is only about 12 thousand light-years distant though, still well within our own Milky Way galaxy. Named for its discoverer and re-discoverers, this faint periodic comet was first sighted in 1858 and not again until 1907 and 1951. Matching orbit calculations indicated that the same comet had been observed at widely separated times. The comet 41P orbits the Sun with a period of about 5.4 years. Credit: Barry Riu

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The Owl Nebula, M97 // Astro Sarisky

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The Owl Nebula, M97 // Miloslav Rohacek

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The Owl Nebula (M97, upper left) and the Surfboard Galaxy (M108, bottom right) // w4sm

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The Owl Nebula, M97 // ScottF

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The Surfboard Galaxy (M108, upper right) and the Owl Nebula (M97, lower left) // David Cheng

Located near the Owl Nebula (M97) on the sky, the Surfboard Galaxy was discovered by Méchain in 1781, only three nights after he found M97. Messier himself observed it about a month later, although he didn't measure its position and so did not include it in his catalog.

William Herschel (1738-1822) independently discovered it in 1789. It wasn't until 1953 when American astronomer Owen Gingerich (1930-2023) identified it as M108.

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The Owl Nebula, M97 // Catherine Ryan Hyde